2019-10-26 - House Hunters: Finding Violet Edition

Alexander is dressed for some discreet breaking an entering. The dark leather gloves could easily be against the chill, after all. He arrives with Julia, saying, "We're lucky that the housing market is rather depressed around here. This is a nice place. In a less evil town, it'd probably been turned over already, and we'd be trying to break into some storage locker somewhere." He's looking on the bright side!

Julia arranged to meet Alexander at the house. Standing by the door, she gives the knob a bit of a turn, curious to see if on random chance it might be open. She's not expecting it to be. "You have a way to get in that doesn't involve me having to do something to the lock?" Julia asks quietly.

Alexander gives her an amused look. "I was gonna break a window. I do need to learn to pick locks, though. Clearly." That's a no, then. "But let's see if there's an alarm." He rests his hand on the door to help him focus, and tries to feel for the electrical flow through the house, focusing on the tell-tale circuits of electricity that may be pulsing through doors and windows, to make sure they're staying closed.

"Huh." Julia says in surprise as the door just opens with a little bit of fiddling. "That's not creepy at all." she remarks, then regards Alexander over her shoulder. "Shall we, then?" and steps on through the door.

Alexander says, "Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly," Alexander says, tonelessly. But it doesn't stop him from going in, although his shoulders are hunched. It's not just the idea that this is creepy on the 'why is this door unlocked' level, but it's odd being in a territory that isn't his, that's of people he knows, but who haven't invited him. Still, he says, "We should search systemically. Start here, work our way through the house." And he closes the door behind them."

"Sounds like a plan." Julia says, although let's be honest, the kitchen is likely one of the first places she'd look anyway. While in there, she calls out to Alexander, and stands looming over the kitchen table to read whatever words the pair have left behind for others to see.

Alexander looks at that furniture, and he gives an amused little snort. "This place reminds me of Thorne's." But he smiles to see the little touches of Violet, and he doesn't have to search long at all before Julia calls him in. His eyebrows go up, and he moves to read with her.

Julia reads the letter aloud, translating and faintly wincing at the structure of the letter itself. "So yeah, this pretty much aligns with what you said. Alex obviously read it and took off after her. I never did figure out what she thought the message was meant to be. But maybe..." Julia reaches out, flipping the pages carefully and scanning them to see if any entry catches her eye.

Alexander shakes his head. "No. They were at the shop when she ran through the door, and Alejandro was there. It wasn't here." He frowns. "I don't think it was here. Blue Bell would have had no way to get from here to the shop. Maybe she was interrupted here doing something else - they didn't seem in distress at the shop until she heard whatever it was. They were eating lunch." While Julia reads, Alexander prowls, looking for any other clues or signs of contact with Alice. He pauses, thoughtful. "She mentions the writing. That was in the bathroom, wasn't it? Maybe we should check there. Just in case anything remains. Or...something." He starts looking for it, even though he's not sure it's the bathroom in this house that she meant.

Julia sighs, and closes the notebook. "I honestly don't remember. She wasn't partiular about tellng me which bathroom it happened in, that I can recall." She approaches the bedroom door, but pauses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, please let there be purpose to my entering there bedroom and please let what I find there be absolutely nothing involving their sex life." Bracing herself, she enters the bedroom.

Alexander lets Julia go first. If they ever end up having to explain their invasion of the house to Violet and Alex, Alexander definitely wants Julia to have to explain finding the freaky sex stuff. He's a gentleman like that. But he does follow close behind, just in case there are monsters.

Julia is highly reluctant to go looking through the drawers. Considering a room for a moment, she notes, "I do remember Violet being super obsessed over the pergola. Maybe we should look there?" There's an inquiring look toward Alexander. "I don't know what I expected to find here, but at least it confirms your suspicions."

Alexander doesn't mind looking through the drawers. He's not going to /roll/ the place, but each drawer is quickly and professionally checked for anything that might speak to where they could have gone or how to find them Over There. Anything else is studiously ignored. And erased from memory. "It can't hurt." A pause. "Well. It can. But thus far, things have been pretty normal. So, yes, I think we should check it."

Alexander does, of course, try to read the tub as well. And hopes like hell that the last strong memories aren't things he can't UNSEE.

Fifteen seconds. Seconds where Alexander is a blank-faced mannequin, all human emotion drained away from him. Then? ALL the emotion. At least, all the horrified desperate emotion. He lets out a rusty scream and staggers back from the tub, and the bathroom, falling onto his ass on the bedroom carpet, skin ashen, eyes wide. "WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK."

Alexander is not eloquent when traumatized. He babbles out his impression of the vision to Julia, while still on the floor, because standing requires legs that work, and his feel like horrible water right now.

Julia backpedals at the scream, but as he sinks to the floor and starts relating his vision, she comes back in and does her best to try and help him get up. "This thing that looks like Alice, it can't be Alice. Or maybe it is? I don't know. None of this makes any fucking sense!"

Alexander does not like to be touched. Especially not now. He crab walks away from Julia's attempt to help him up, and grabs at nearby furniture to pull himself up. "It - she - was guilty. Underneath. Maybe. Maybe she..." he shudders, "I think it has to be at least considered that Alice Whitehouse has signed onto the side of the Shadows, and lured her sister Over There."

"I can't accept that. Alice kept me alive and sane in that place. She practically shoved me out the door herself on my eighteenth birthday. Why would she push me out, but bring her own sister into all of that?" She's baffled, and a little upset, but promptly distracted by the top margins of paper peeking out of the dresser. Walking over, she seizes the drawer pull while gently holding onto the tips of the paper and tugs carefully.

Alexander says, "You didn't feel that...I don't even have a word for it." Alexander frowns. "I'm not saying she knew what she was signing up for, Julia. Or even that it's what happened. But that scenario has to be entertained. Especially if we're going looking for them." He also sees the paper, and reaches for the second one as she tugs at the first, also being careful in its extraction."

Julia stares down at the page. "Maybe it's using her. Taking her form, to try and lure us back. People who sign into the asylum do so of their own free will, but kids are the wards of their parents." She looks up at Alexander. "Would that make sense? It would be a way to lure Violet in. And me after. It may not even be the only person this thing has pretended to be."

Alexander relays the feelings from the paper, and the snippet of conversation. "I don't know that we have any evidence to support that hypothesis, Julia. But it's a possibility, I suppose." He looks skeptical, but not enough to argue strongly about it at this moment. "Did you see her at the Fried Fish stand? Or were all of these sightings by Violet?" He hmms. "And...assume, for a second, that Violet was right, and Alice was trying to warn Violet about Them coming for someone. Who would that possibly be? Not Violet - then it'd be 'coming for you', and not Alice, if she was actually Alice and doing the warning. You? Someone else? A former Asylum patient doesn't...it would be odd, wouldn't it? Since it sounds like They have access to the patients."

"Once." Julia confesses. "I saw her across the street from where I was, and followed her to Violet's shop. She went in the door, I followed her, but then I was on the Other Side, back at the Asylum."

Alexander gives Julia a sidelong look. "So she lured you back to a dangerous place?" His voice is carefully toneless. Then he sighs. "All right. Let's think about this for a day or two. I talked with Easton and Dr. Glass, and they're up for finding the Asylum. Easton also has a lead - something from his uncle. And it's time I invite a doctor to tea. And questions." He frowns. "I don't know Alice at all. Do you really trust her that much?"

"It looked like Alice, that doesn't mean it -was- Alice." She glares right back at Alexander, undaunted. "Look, if it was, it would have had to be something that happened after I left." Quieter, "I trust the Alice I knew."

"People change," Alexander says, quietly. "Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. Maybe if we find the Asylum, we can find some records saying what they were doing to Alice, and what...how she might have changed." He looks around. "Anything else you wanted to search? I feel like we've got the bulk of it and," he glances back at the bathroom, and his face goes a shade paler, "I have the pressing need to go somewhere and hide for a while. Sorry."

"I - " she starts to say like she's going to suggest something, and then deflates. "I think we've done all we can here. And you're pretty wrung out. Thanks for doing this."

"Anytime," Alexander says, with a shrug. "Violet was - is - my friend. If we can do anything to find her, or to figure out how to get the innocent and the suffering out of that place? I'll do it." He makes his way towards the exit. "It'd just be nice not to have something horrific in my brain, for once," he mutters, under his breath.